


The Three Sides Of Truth

by Anonymous



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Character Interpretation, Canon Compliant, F/M, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-07 18:38:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19215235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: The truth, the half-truth, and the lie. Three ways to interpret the same actions.





	The Three Sides Of Truth

_I. The Truth_

He’d killed Aerys after Aerys had asked for his father’s head, when he knew the whole Lannister army was minutes away and he’d face no consequences, the half million innocents coincidental next to his family.

He’d shoved a child out a window and crippled him for life and started a war all to protect himself and Cersei and their secret.

He’d stayed by his sister’s side after she’d killed hundreds of people with wildfire, driven their youngest child to suicide, and climbed to her throne over Tommen’s corpse because even their children that they had thought they cared about more than anything still mattered less than they did.

He’d gone north to fight for the living because if the dead were victorious, they would have kept on marching, picking up more soldiers with every mile they travelled, until they reached King’s Landing and the Red Keep and killed Cersei along with all her subjects.

He’d slept with a woman that had known so little courtesy that she’d once fallen in love with a man for a dance and a smile and sworn to follow him everywhere, no matter that he’d never love her back, and would have left her in the middle of the night without a word of goodbye because she saw good in him and all he did was take.

Every good thing he’d ever done, everything Brienne – young, idealistic, painfully naïve Brienne – took as a sign of his decency and honour, had been for his own ends. For himself, for his house, for his Cersei. Every bad thing he’d ever done had been selfish and cruel and downright unnecessary, because none of it mattered, just him and Cersei and their love. Now it was time to go back to her, because what did it _matter_ that he’d left her, that she’d sent an assassin to kill him, that they’d spent years growing apart when he was hers and she was his? His beacon, his guiding light, his _home –_ more than Casterly Rock or King’s Landing or anywhere else in the world, Cersei’s side was where he belonged. She _mattered_ more than anyone, more than Bran Stark or Brienne of Tarth or the Dragon Queen or every citizen to ever live in King’s Landing. And that would be true until their dying day.

“I never really cared much for them.”

_II. The Half-Truth_

For all that he had been Tywin Lannister’s prized heir, out of the three siblings, he was the least like the Old Lion.

He wasn’t Cersei or Tyrion. He’d never had the same ambition or drive to succeed or thirst to prove himself that they did. What had he ever wanted? For most of his life…really just to be with Cersei. He’d rejected his birthright for her and all but sworn to follow her anywhere, her faithful shadow. Then he, proving _again_ that he really was the stupidest Lannister, had wanted to be _better._ To be the man that kept oaths, rather than shattering them to pieces; the man that fought for what was right, rather than what was benefitted him and his; the man that lived up to the ideals the boy he’d been had believed in so fiercely. So he’d left Cersei and come north to fight alongside Brienne in a war they all thought unwinnable.

The born follower in a family full of leaders. The stupidest Lannister. So stupid that it had taken him this long to understand that there was no redemption, not for him.

No matter how much good he did, how could he ever wash out the monstrous?

Even now, after he’d left and tried to do the right thing and shared a bed with one of the only people to ever believe he could be better, he still dreamt of Cersei. They’d come into the world together and would go out together, too.

There was no choice. Not when he was so far away, wrapped in the arms of someone else, and still dreaming of his twin. He would always belong to Cersei.

Maybe once, long ago, he’d been a better person. If that time had ever existed, in those years before he’d stained his hands with so much blood it would never wash out and thrown his lot in with monsters just like him, it was long passed. If he hadn’t lost his right to happiness when he’d pushed a child from a tower or beat his cousin to death with his bare hands, surely he’d lost it when he’d served the queen to set King’s Landing alight. Now, he wasn’t worthy. Not of life, not of forgiveness, and not of Brienne. Not after all he’d done. Not when he still longed for Cersei.

What did that _make_ him? He’d known, of course, that he couldn’t choose who he loved. But he could certainly choose what that love made him do. Or so he’d thought. Apparently, he was just too rotten to the core to not reject salvation and absolution offered by a woman that had foolishly loved him for the sake of one that hadn’t done anything but hurt in years.

He loved Brienne, too.

He’d offered to fight and die by her side, but in the end, it would always be Cersei. Cersei, who he would never be able to stop loving, even if it meant trampling on the heart of a good woman, a better person than either he or his golden twin could ever be.

“She’s hateful. And so am I.”

_III. The Lie_

Brienne’s eyes shimmered in the night and he had to close his own for a moment, take in a few deep, bracing breaths, to not break down.

“Stay with me,” she said, this woman that had never asked him for anything, and stupidest Lannister though he might be, even he could understand what she wasn’t saying, what she was too proud to say.

It was almost poetic that he couldn’t grant the one request. He’d spent years letting her down, of course he’d do it one last time. He never could have anticipated how much it would _hurt._ She didn’t understand. She couldn’t.

Cersei was his sister and he loved her but this wasn’t _about_ love, wasn’t about choice, wasn’t about doing anything to get back to her, no more than leaving her in the first place had been. This was about right and wrong.

His sister. His once lover. The mother of his unborn child.

He couldn’t let her die.

He couldn’t stay, no matter how much he might want to.

So he’d packed up his things and tried to sneak out in the middle of the night and now, when met with the full force of Brienne’s pleading gaze and desperate appeals, responded with harshly cruel words, even as he left her for the final time, left the woman who had vouched for him and believed in him and had, long before Winterfell and kisses that tasted of wine and jubilation at being alive, seen more of his soul than anyone else in the world.

He’d known he was a bad man. But he’d never really considered that he was cruel, too.

He wanted to explain, but how could he? Brienne was the most honourable person he knew. If there was anyone that could understand that this was what duty compelled him to do, it was her. But even she would only see this as him choosing another over her. No one else could understand the twisted knot of conflicting vows and loyalties in his chest, understand how he had to choose his duty to his family, his oldest unspoken oath, over love and peace and rest.

Maybe no one else _should._

It was better this way. If she thought it was about him choosing Cersei, if she thought it was about him not loving her, she could move on, like she had from Renly, find someone younger and kinder and better than him, someone worthy of her faith and devotion.

Renly hadn’t deserved it. Jaime certainly didn’t, either.

She’d stay here, where it was safe, rather than going with him for honour’s sake, and he could die knowing that at least he hadn’t ruined this, hadn’t failed this one person.

 _I love you,_ he wanted to say. _I don’t deserve you. I have to do this, don’t you see? I’m sorry._

So many things he wanted to tell her and he said none of them.

Instead, he didn’t even say goodbye.


End file.
